REWIND: Making Beans on Toast With Therapy?

It is a well-known fact that bands eat poorly when on the road. They’re away from the comforts of home and tend to regularly eat at truckstops, out of packets and off of girls (or boys). But not Irish rock band Therapy?

They ate very well when they were on tour in the mid-90s, at least when they came through Toronto.

They booked in at a ’70s apartment-style hotel I recommended called the Town Inn (where I later spent New Year’s Eve, 1994 watching Beverly Hills 90210 with Trevor from Econoline Crush and various wasted mates). It had a kitchen and plates.

One Sunday night in 1994, me, the band, their roadies and a couple of mates used bed sheets for table cloths, brought chairs in from all rooms, cooked a roast chicken dinner, with all the trimmings, and got enormously plastered. They’d just come off a tour with Christian heavy-metallers King’s X and took the piss out of saying Grace. But they did.

Two years later, they were back, this time with a new member (and my best friend) Martin McCarrick. Martin had serious goth skills. He’d recorded with Robert Smith, This Mortal Coil, Bryan Ferry, Throwing Muses, Dead Can Dance and been in Siouxsie and the Banshees. And now it was 2am and he and the band were hungry. What to eat?

“Why not beans on toast?” asked bassist Michael McKeegan.

“What’s beans on toast?” I asked.

“Uh, it’s beans….on toast. Everyone eats it in the UK.”

“Are you f*cking insane? That’s just gross. How do you make it?” I asked.

Here’s how:

Martin: “It’s very important you have the correct utensils. And the beans only work if the utensils are also able to dance and/or communicate with each other.”

Michael: “And of course you have to have the beans. These are special beans. I got them from a Giant. They’re magic. See, I had to get THREE wristbands to enable me to get up the stalk. Step one: open the can.”

Michael: “Cheese plays a large part in the real success of beans on toast. So cut up some cheese, like this. What the hell is this? Cheddar? Your cheddar is ORANGE? Cheddar isn’t supposed to be that colour!”

Martin: “It tastes lovely, it really does. Particularly if you just slop it on the bread. And oooh, it’s delightful with a cuppa. Mine’s filled with vodka. And hey, Andy Carins, do you want some?”

Andy: “Nah, yer awright. I’m trying to figure out what the hell this thing does. They say it’s a “DISCMAN”. I think you put records in it or something. Thanks anyway!” \m/